It's not all beer and skittles sweeties. (So bored with edging I could scream)

It's been awhile since you heard from me but I took a little break to catch up on my trash-novel reading and to go through my clothes closet to purge it of things I will never wear again on pain of becoming a hopelessly outdated fossil. Still, I have not been totally idle. See above, the edging that is now half way around the Sampler Stole. It would be further along if I didn't keep looking for something else to do. Did I mention that finishing a project is not always as much fun as starting one? Still, it's good discipline for me to plod on since I have decided that I only get to start back on the Princess Shawl after I finish this stole. Under this you can see one of the things I worked on to distract myself from edging Hell. I had to force myself to stop knitting on the "International Shawl" because the center is a Niebling and it's way too much fun. It's up to row 79 and you can begin to see the next set of leaves starting as well as the base of the first flowers. The ball of fiber is some Polworth that I got at Deep Color when it closed it's retail store front.I loved the colors in it and it is quite soft though not as soft as a merino. It's been wet and cold out here and that always makes me want to stay home and spin so I started in on this using my Schacht single treadle wheel. It looks pretty on the bobbin and I had never tried any of this fiber before. I think I'm just going to ply the Polworth and pray I have enough yardage to make something pretty. I only have 4 ounces of the stuff but it works up nicely and feels sturdy. I got my Estonian Lace book in the mail and it's very interesting. I feel some swatching in my future will be in order to figure out what I want to come after the Myrtle Leaf section in the International Shawl. I also got a magazine on E-bay as you see above. It has only 3 patterns in it that I wanted but it was not very expensive so I was lucky. It's the tablecloth I really fancy and I am spending a little bit of time interviewing my yarn stash for a suitable candidate. I'm going to try to resist buying lots of new fiber and yarn this year and try to knit from my stash. I hope Stitches West 2008 will be focused more on obtaining new patterns, books or tools etc. I am allowed to buy sock yarn for my sister as I'm wearing out my hand knit socks she made for me. Socks That Rock make a particularly nice sock yarn so I hope to get her some of that. Of course if I fail, I will be forced to wear a hair shirt. But at least it will be a lace patterned hair shirt :-)

Stash Enhancement and the International Shawl (4 blind women and an elephant)

Not that I need more yarn in my stash, but sometimes you just have to break down and give in to the need to have your very own version of a "Lace Yarn Store" in your home in order to adequately "Shop" from your stash for projects that catch your fancy. Other times, people just feed your addiction without realizing that you are a yarn/fiber junkie. The lovely Alpaca with a Twist "Fino" is yarn that was given to me by Millie. She let me have it when she realized she did not really fancy it for the project she had in mind. I love it and it is a great stash addition since I don't have that much in black. The Whisper is a nice merino lace weight I got at ImagiKnit in San Francisco while waiting for a friend to get a pattern. Those LYS are lethal to the pocketbook because there is no such thing as "just looking". Yes, I know it's variegated. I'm thinking something very simple to make best use of the colors shifting. Something as a break to my other projects. The cone of yarn is from ColourMart and is a 3/45 Cashmere/Silk. The color is "Japanese Maple" and it's the perfect shade of red. I just bid on E-Bay for a Niebling pattern that I want to knit in this.

Last, but not least, I got a message on Ravelry from Queer Joe asking if I had ever considered knitting with yarn from Black Bunny. Well, of course I had but had never been fortunate enough to get my hands on any of her lace weight yarns. She is consistently sold-out on her Etsy site and she also never had quite enough yardage for me in a single color-way. Joe, being the smart man he is, suggested I place an order for the color/fiber content and yardage I wanted. It was really easy and Carol at Black Bunny graciously dyed me 2 skeins of superfine alpaca in "Teal" 2,480 yds/8 ounces/skein. I am in heaven! She has such a lovely eye for the colors.

So which comes first? Chicken or Egg? When you have the yarn does it inspire you to knit a particular pattern or does the pattern come first? For me, it's more like the stars align and you suddenly have a project. Well folks, that is why I am now knitting the "International Shawl" (working title). This is a concept that was germinated over the holidays by 4 knitters with too much time on their hands :-) The gang consists of fleegle, yorksett, missalicefay and me . I can't recall who started it. It was either fleegle or yorksett, but the idea is that we all knit a shawl using lace patterns from 4 different countries/sources. E-mails flew fast and thick and so far, we sort of agreed to a Niebling center from book 2 of the "Knitted Lace Designs of the Modern Mode" books Naoko Ichida (German or Japanese depending on your view), a band of Myrtle Leaf lace from "Victorian Lace Today" by Jane Sowerby (English/British) and then we get to figure it out from there on our own from perhaps Estonian and Russian lace.

So it is that I took my beautiful Black Bunny superfine alpaca lace weight yarn and started the center for the International shawl. I have a B&W picture of the center from the book and a shot of my progress so far (row 52) I have ordered the Estonian lace book that I don't own and it will be mailed to me very soon. There is a nice blog "Estonian Lace Project" that has samples of the lace from that book knit up so people can see them in case you'd like to take a look. I'm checking out my copy of "The Gossamer Webs Design Collection" by Galina Khmeleva for ideas for the "Russian" lace.

So it's back to juggling projects for the terminally menopausal at Casa de las lacefreak. But then, that's what makes it so much fun :-)

Happy New Years to Everyone!

Legends Blocked (Another one bites the dust!)

This project was started because I joined "Spun Stitches" a Spin/Knit-a-long in June 2007. I used my single treadle Schacht wheel to spin fiber from Lisa Souza. One single in BFL and one in Merino both in her "Petroglyph" colorway, then plied them on my sisters Majacraft Rose using the lace flyer with the large core bobbins. I did this because I wanted something a little bit stronger than just plied merino. I ended up with a lace weight yarn at approx. 36 WPI that was really quite soft and had good strength. I then knit "Legends of the Shetland Seas" by Hazel Carter using 2.5 mm needles with a modified edging and finished blocking it today :-) I really do like how it came out this time. Now I can continue working on the edge for the Sampler Stole. I know I can't finish it before the end of the year, but I can at least make some headway. I can't justify starting anything new until that one is done. I have even put aside my pretty Princess edging (yes, more edging) until that one is done. So, in the nick of time, I have finished one more thing before the end of 2007. You have all been very patient and supportive and I want to wish everyone out there a Happy Holiday and a Wonderful New Year! See you all in 2008!

Legends of the Shetland Seas Edging (Can she finish one more thing before Christmas?)

I've been working on my "Legends of the Shetland Seas" stole since this is close to being done. I'm also going to work on the Sampler Stole edge as well even though I'm not fond of those color shift in that one. The colors in the "Legends" stole are a little bit smoother. Everything else is going to wait since I'd really like to be done with these two before the end of the year if possible. It's really tough to get the pictures to show the color of this shawl since most of the time I'm shooting with flash at night, having used the daylight hours for the actual knitting. I figure I'd try to finish these two since everyone has been very patient with how long it takes me to actually complete a project. End of year eye-candy would be a nice way to finish off 2007 if possible. I'm almost done with shopping and wrapping gifts but way behind in trying to bake anything. There's a kind of interesting project shaping up for next year, but I will wait to post about it when it's a little better defined. Until then, if you don't hear from me for a few weeks it's because I'm swamped for the holidays as I imagine you all might be as well. I remind myself to have fun while I'm running off to buy more butter and sugar and I hope you all remember to enjoy yourselves as well as the year runs down. I promise to post the Legends of the Shetland Seas stole once it's done. See you guys in a few weeks!

Winter Slow Down (Row 73 of Salmon Queen)

Short post since my knitting is suffering the usual "Winter Slow Down" as I run around shopping and preparing for holiday baking. I have 26 points on the edge for the Princess, I'm on row 73 of the Salmon Queen doily a you can see above. I have a close shot of the "crossed stitches" that you see in lots of the Niebling patterns that he looks like he puts in for texture. I continue to slowly put more edging on the Sampler Stole. I decided to leave in the abrupt color changes in the edge since it I have no desire to have to weave in multiple ends and anyone who gets this yarn might as well see that this is something it does. I spend more time planning next years projects rather than starting new ones. I have plenty to work on in the mean time :-) Good Evening and Good Knitting!

Thanksgiving/Knitting (Why does that shawl smell like turkey?)

Yeah, I know it's not a picture of lace but it is what has been taking up time today. My sister and I have been enlisted to do Thanksgiving for our little neices since our sister-in-law is out of the country for her job this week, and this is one of two large pans of dressing.When you have to help out at Thanksgiving, it's not always about you and the lace knitting. People expect turkey, dressing, pies. You get the idea. Still, it is possible to slip in a little bit of knitting while ordering Xmas presents on-line and running out to get that last minute bag of sugar or flour. I'm slowly getting there with the Princess edge (20 points), the Sampler Stole edge crawls along and has those annoying color transitions I suspected would happen (I'm going to leave them however because it's for the folks at Yarn Place) and I have started the other end of the Legends Stole. Not working on Salmon Queen right now. That's for after Thanksgiving I think. For those who noticed that the Peacock Shawl has gone missing from my pictures, I took some good advice from Laritza and asked someone on Ravelry who liked the shawl if she wanted to have it to finish. It is now on it's way to Australia. I'm very happy about that and now can concentrate on my remaining projects without that albatross around my neck!

As I type this, apple pies are in the oven, pumpkin pies are next, and the year just rushes towards it's demise without pause. Time for me to slow down a bit and try to enjoy the holidays. My knitting always slows a little this time of year and it gives me a chance to think about next years projects. I wonder if you have noticed, as I have started to notice, that my taste in lace projects has been changing? It's going to be interesting next year. Happy Thanksgiving!

You Can't Knit Just One Niebling ("Lachskonigin" AKA "Salmon Queen" Doily)

Just a short post since this is, for me, a three day weekend. Did I mention that I can't knit just one lace project at a time? Some get finished sooner than others and some, like the Peacock Shawl, are destined to never be finished by me (maybe someone else will get this project). However, this never stopped me from casting on more lace. See above the start of "Lachskonigin" also known as "Salmon Queen" for some reason. It's another Niebling doily that I bought from doilyhead and you can see a picture on her Flicker Site here . I did the center on US 0000 and then switched to US 000 ( I have ordered circulars in US 0000 and even smaller but they have not arrived yet). I'm using my favorite thread Flora #50. Too bad they stopped making that size of Flora but I have been stashing it so I have enough there to keep me going for a long time.

Also, what do you all do about those large chart inserts in the Anna and Burda magazines? I started buying those old magazines on E-Bay and some of the inserts are "crispy" with age. Now, I'm not collecting magazines for their value as antiques. These are not "first editions" folks. I buy them because many of those darned Niebling patterns have yet to be re-published and I want to knit them! But I was concerned that I would just plain not be able to read the patterns in some of these old magazines or they would just crumble when I went to go Xerox them in the future, they are that old. So what did I do? I scanned them and then cut and pasted them together. I then used plastic laminating sheets on top of these scans to preserve the print. You get a huge sheet and I roll them up until I need them. You can see from the last picture that I also will cut out a pattern and label them when I want to use them. I can stick highlighter tape on these patterns and I can save them for later as well. I keep them in a large, flat, cheap art portfolio. I could just scan them and save them to a disc I guess but I always did like to be able to flip through pages and patterns with my hands. Old dog getting older here :-)

Good Evening and Good Knitting!

The Princess Shawl Re-issue (Madness. Sheer Madness)

My yarn selection for the Princess Shawl has arrived (sound of jumping up and down). ColourMart 3/45 Cashmere Silk in deep lavender. Knitting on 2.00 mm (US 0) needles, I'm working on the edging. I have to make 85 points. It's a whole lot easier to knit with this yarn than what I choose for the WRS and much more of a pleasure. I have also finished one end of the "Legends of the Shetland Seas" stole as you can see above. Now for the other end and then, you guessed it, more edging. I'm not even going to bother to post the Sampler Stole edge until I finish one side. All this knitting is really quite nice, but I am still longing for another Niebling project. Does that mean I'm an addict? Maybe just a small doily....I must go knit now!

Swatching for the "Princess Shawl" (What do you mean I don't have enough yardage?)

The Princess Shawl pattern is being mailed to me and so I am trying to anticipate what I might use to knit this shawl. I went to the Heirloom Knitting Site to check out yarn recommendations and yardage only to end up a little confused. The yardages and needle sizes are all over the map. Now I'm trying to use my stash for this and it matters to me that I don't run out of yarn for this shawl because some of the yarn is no longer available. If I run out of one of those, I'm up the creek so to speak. Hence my trepidation.

Above I have a few swatches from my stash. In the top picture on the left hand side you have Lacis Tussah Silk 60/2 knit on US 000 (cone holds 5,600 yards). Pleasant to knit, a little "sticky" rather than slick, nice drape. Goes over the joins of my Addi Turbo needles very nicely and it's strong. If I ran out, it is still available. Downside, not very soft :-( My sister liked this one the best. On the right I have ColourMart 50/50 Cashmere/Silk from ColourMart 3/84 NM 4,600 yards on this cone. It feels amazing, knits nicely, has a lovely halo and also goes over the joins without any problem. Downside. If I run out of yarn, there is no more in this color to be had :-( Both these yarns are reasonable in cost.

Next picture. All these were also knit on US 000 needles. On the left I have swatched Habu orgazine degummed silk which is indigo dyed (NS-18J, 21d/102 colour # 5) Strong, lovely to look at, great body not at all limp, blocked and stayed blocked, soft, shimmery, and not nearly enough of it for Princess Shawl. I'd have to buy about 3 thousand more yards if I want to do the Princess in this. Downside. drop a stitch and it wants to run away :-( On the right side you have ColourMart 65/35 cashmere/silk 2/60 NM and 5,000 yards on the cone.Pretty nice to knit though it wants to split a little, pretty colors, blocked OK. Downside. If I run out there is no more to be had. It's also kind of light in weight and sort of wants to stick to me with all that hair. :-( Maybe it would drape better if it was a large piece of knitting but all in all I'd rather knit with the ColourMart 3/84 instead for this project.

Last picture. I just put a swatch of Colourmart smooth silk. It's the one on the site from a french mill with 4 plies. It's too big and the wrong color for this project. It's out of the running but I put it next to the 2/60 cashmere/silk for you to see how much bigger it is from the others. That would look nice for something that requires sections of solid knitting to flesh out a motif, like a Niebling.

As for yardage estimates they vary with needles, what you select to knit with and are confusing to me to figure out if would have enough if I knit from the stash.

Original was knit with DMC Crochet Cotton # 70 on 2.25/UK13/US 0 or US 1. It says they used 13/20gm balls at 330m/20gm ball (4,290 meters or 4,692 yds). Based on this, you would think I'd need less yardage on smaller needles so I could use stuff from the stash. However, other estimates vary from 5,150 meters using Shetland Supreme 1 ply on 1.5mm/UK16/US 000 or US 0000. Using Gossamer Merino they suggest 4,800 meters on 2.00 or 2.25mm needles and for the Cashmere Silk (70/30) using 1.50mm needles you are supposed to get 5,800 meters of yarn.

So ultimately I'm still undecided but it's fun to swatch. If you want to see more swatches you could go over to fleegle and see what she's tried out :-) She gives lots of information and you really get to see that not all gossamer yarns are equal once they are knit up, in spite of their similar weights! By next post I hope to have done one end of the Legends of the Shetland Seas Shawl and have started the other end. It goes without saying that I am trying to avoid the edging for the Sampler Stole but I promise I will eventually finish it. For those wondering about the Peacock Shawl it's slated for de-construction this weekend. Why you ask? Because I cast-on something else this year if I get rid of it, that's why! Hmmmm. I wonder what that project might be? Good evening and good knitting!